


"Ook," Said The Librarian

by AdaptationDecay



Category: 16th & 17th Century CE RPF, Discworld - Pratchett, RPF - yuletide, Thursday Next - Fforde
Genre: #Yulechat Challenge 2009, 100-1000 Words, Comedy, Crack, Crossover, Ficlet, Fourth Wall, Gen, Humor, Literary Reference, Meta, Silly, Tentacles, Unconventional Formatting, Weirdness, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 05:39:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/38349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdaptationDecay/pseuds/AdaptationDecay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I suspect this will be as confusing to read as it was to write and format.</p><p>Click the asterisks to go to the relevant footnote. Click the carets to be taken back where you were.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Ook," Said The Librarian

**Author's Note:**

  * For [voltaireontoast](https://archiveofourown.org/users/voltaireontoast/gifts).



The librarian of Unseen University carefully wrote 612.8 onto the spine sticker of the library's latest acquisition and decided to stop for a banana* before he went and shelved it.*

"Ook?"* Said the librarian.*

He peeled his banana * and ate it before heading off into the stacks. He had a feeling it was going to be one of those days.

\---

"Hello," said the taller of the two men. They were both very neatly dressed and had seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

"Ook,"* said the librarian.

"We're here to spread the word," said the shorter of the two men.

"Ook,"* said the librarian.

"The word about Christopher Marlowe and about how the plays currently attributed to William Shakespeare are - in fact - the work of..."

"Ook,"* groaned the librarian.*

"For example, the line 'But stay! What star shines yonder in the east? / The lodestar of my life, if Abigail!'* clearly parallels the later 'But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? / It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!'"*

"Ook,"* said the librarian.

"Surely a man such as yourself..."

The librarian didn't say 'OOK!' He didn't need to. His expression said it for him.*

"I do beg your pardon, an ape such as yourself. Surely an ape such as yourself will agree that it's highly out of the ordinary for a man of such humble beginnings - a Warwickshire glovemaker's son! - to become the most famous playwright in the history of the world."

"Ook!"*

"Whereas Christopher Marlowe - a Cambridge man - is a much more suitable candidate. A university education confers an ability to -"

"Ook?"*

"Well, it's easy to dismiss Marlovian Theory as being motivated by classism, but a careful reading of the texts provides a lot of evidence that...* Oh shit."

The librarian followed the Marlovian's eyeline. Leaning against the shelves and idly running her thumb down the spine of a book tagged 594.5 was a woman in her thirties holding a footnoterphone.*

"It's the law! Run!"

The Marlovians turned tail and would have vanished into the depths of the library, had not a pair of long orange arms reached out and grabbed them both by the collar. *

Still holding the miscreants, the librarian turned to the woman and said "Ook!"*

The shorter of the two Marlovians glared at him.

"We'd hoped to find more sympathy for our views here, but it seems people are prepared to close their eyes to the truth, no matter where--"*

"Oh for god's sake," the woman interrupted. "Look, Marlowe didn't write the plays, all right? Shakespeare was handed a copy of the eighteen plays by a rogue chronoguard from the future and he copied them all out. The authorship is murky, but not the way you're thinking. Technically, nobody wrote those plays."

"Thursday, that's ridiculous."*

"No more ridiculous than believing Kit Marlowe faked his own death at the Bull Tavern just so he could give all the credit for his genius to some hack from the Midlands."

"Wait a minute, eighteen?"

"He wrote the rest himself. It's all a bit of a paradox, really."

"OOK!"* Said the librarian.

The taller Marlovian appeared to be on the verge of tears.

"But if he really did die in Deptford, what are we supposed to do with the rest of our lives?"*

"Preaching the gospel of Marlowe is all we've ever known," said his friend, sadly.

The librarian released their collars and pulled them both into a reassuring hug. His eyes met Thursday's and the two of them held a brief, wordless conversation.*

Thursday rolled her eyes slightly, then addressed the Marlovians.

"Have either of you considered a career in fandom? You could do very well in Yuletide."*

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*The librarian was an orangutan. The cause of his transformation would be dull to relate here, although at the time it had been quite exciting and full of incident. ^

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*"Unseen University, this is Jurisfiction. We will require your co-operation. Your premises have been compromised by--" ^

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*Translation: "Is that you, Thursday?" ^

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*"Oh, hello! Yes, it's me. You wouldn't believe the trouble I've had getting a proper connection on this footnoterphone. The last three times I tried to call the university it put me through to students and I keep getting a crossed line with some IRC channel.* You see?" ^

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*&lt;Shu&gt; ATTENTION. IF YOU HAVE NOT EATEN. IT IS OKAY FOR YOU TO LEAVE CHAT TO EAT. ^

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*"Anyway, we've got a couple of pagerunners. I'd tracked them as far as Hamlet by bookjumping, but they managed to sneak into Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and I lost them again. We're pretty sure they're headed for the UU library. Any chance you can keep them talking until I get there? They're... They're from The Eyre Affair, actually. They're not dangerous; they're just a bit... Well, anyway, I'll be there as soon as I can." ^

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*Translation - "Hello, can I help you?"* ^

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*And not the nice sort of 'Can I help you', the sort that's a thinly veiled threat to knot your legs behind your head and bounce you off the ceiling if it turns out you're going to be any trouble. ^

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*Translation - "I'd leave that sort of thing to trained professionals if I were you. Words have power, you know and if you go around spreading them willy-nilly in an area as riddled with magic as this library, you'll be geography.* So before we go any further, you'd better let me know exactly which word you're intending to spread."* ^

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*Like history, but spread over a wider area. ^

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*Orangutan is quite a concise language. ^

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*Translation: "Oh gods!" ^

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*&lt;mjules&gt; I totally want to write a story about what on EARTH Paul Simon was doing with Julio down in the schoolyard ^

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*_The Jew of Malta_, Christopher Marlowe ^

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*_Romeo and Juliet_, William Shakespeare ^

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*Translation: "Look, I don't really want to get into this, but that doesn't prove anything." ^

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*&lt;stars&gt; Do you need me to beta your beta? You know, make sure they're REALLY the best they can be. ^

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* Translation: "Out of the ordinary? More like bloody miraculous."* ^

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*The librarian had spent the best part of a month in the 1500s trying to sort that one out. The fact that he and the other wizards had managed to stop Arthur J. Nightingale from inflicting his plays upon the world in Shakespeare's stead had, indeed, been a minor miracle. ^

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*Translation: "Eat big dinners?" ^

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*&lt;Truth&gt; I was really sick at home one day, and Spongebob Squarepants was on the tube and I found myself pondering Squidward/Spongebob tentacle sex.  
&lt;Truth&gt; My thought on people who make a request and say 'anything'?  
&lt;Truth&gt; Had better not match with me. ^

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*&lt;Livia&gt; Probably the Yuletide grue is what eats you when you aren't going to finish your story in time.  
&lt;Livia&gt; "It is very close to deadline. You are likely to be eaten by a grue." ^

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*&lt;mjules&gt; Nnnghh, statistics. Someone should write porn about 3-way ANOVAs. ^

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*Translation: "Marlovians, Thursday! If you're going to subject me to that claptrap without warning, I hope you're going to at least buy me a beer." ^

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*&lt;Livia&gt; .... I kinda would read The Grand Sophy vs. Zombies actually  
&lt;Truth&gt; She would kick zombie ass.  
&lt;Livia&gt; Pistol in one hand, riding her big black horse down the street....  
&lt;Livia&gt; ................... I might have to write this.  
&lt;Franzi&gt; Maybe I'll request nothing but tentacles next year just to see if I can make it onto the pinch hit list  
&lt;JackOfNone&gt; You should request tentacles for the most inappropriate fandoms possible  
&lt;Livia&gt; I don't care how many cookies you send me, I'm not writing The Grand Sophy vs Tentacles ^

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*&lt;stars&gt; If I could just will stories into existence without having to sit down and write them, my fandom output would increase about 500000%, and most of it would be SO EMBARRASSING ^

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*Translation: "And you know who loves paradoxes? Elves! I spent weeks stuck in that midden of a city trying to make sure Shakespeare wrote those plays. And it was all because your dad thinks he's Lu Tse? That's a big drink you owe me, Thursday. A very big drink." ^

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*&lt;Shu&gt; We've had boulders falling...  
&lt;Shu&gt; ...human sacrifice...  
&lt;Shu&gt; This year has been downright vanilla.  
&lt;Truth&gt; You weren't here for the Ophelia/Gertrude porn yesterday, Shu.  
&lt;hhertzof&gt; Why no one requested #yuletide, I will never know. ^

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*"Ook."*  
"When you put it like that..."  
"Ook."*  
"Oh easily. They're barely in it, I'll get a couple of generics in."  
"Ook."* ^

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*Translation: "They're good at extrapolating from the known facts and spinning hugely unlikely stories. They personalise the way they tell it for each listener. I'd say they were pretty good candidates, wouldn't you?" ^

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*Translation: "Could you replace them in The Eyre Affair?" ^

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* Translation: "Good, because the sooner we get this sorted, the sooner we can head down to The Drum for your apology." ^

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*&lt;Hippo-Plaid&gt; HIPPO DANCE  
&lt;Hippo-Plaid&gt; BETA NEEDED  
&lt;Hippo-Plaid&gt; FANDOM IS RPF - 16TH-17TH CENTURY  
&lt;Hippo-Plaid&gt; TECHNICAL BETA NEEDED FOR A 3,000 WORD MARLOWE/KYD PWP  
&lt;Hippo-Plaid&gt; ANY VOLUNTEERS? ^

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End file.
